Beloved,
We’re midway between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and so it’s time to honor our own version at First Church: a post-gender Mothering Fathering Sunday.
Mother’s Day, some of you likely know, was founded as an antiwar effort by mothers who were tired of losing their sons in violent conflicts. How times have changed…This Sunday, we’ll celebrate mothering and fathering not as an exercise in materialism, but as a spiritual practice: to remember the Mother and Father of us all, to stick our finger in the side of those images of God who created us.
I’ll be preaching, on the idea: “why does it seem like the default image for God in our imaginations is old, male, white? Why is it, despite our best imaginings and most progressive upbringings, does this stick?” Joan Dolamore is our first-time liturgist! Laura Ruth will preach for the children, tell us the Word. The children and women will sing. It is Jubilee Sunday and children older than Nursery age are invited to be in worship with us!
You might see a few of our prodigal old folk back among us. If you see them, go and introduce yourself. These are the people who built our church. They’ll want to know that it’s in good hands, your hands; and they’ll want to know something about you.
After church: nothing! but coffee hour, sunshine, friendship.
blessings,
Molly
Beloved!
It’s a beautiful day. What are you doing indoors?
This Sunday in church: I’m preaching from John’s gospel, more gooey, high-blown stuff on love, specifically: “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Hear this John: easier said than done. We have a hard enough time loving ourselves. Maybe we’re starting at the wrong end of things? What is the relationship between loving, knowing, yourself, and loving, knowing, others?
Andrea Ranger is our first-time liturgist! People, come and smile and nod at her, when she confesses. If she happens to tear, cry with her. This is what it means to be one bread, one body, broken.
Laura Ruth is back with us! She’ll lead us in prayers. Thom is back! He’ll lead us in song. Our new Sunday school teacher, Erin Iwanusa, begins! She’ll be with the 7-11 year olds until Katy Pare finishes in June, then shift to the 3-6 year old classroom. Find her, greet her, make her feel at home among us!
After worship, we reuse, recycle, and take the “one body” image a little further: our first-ever Clothing Swap at church. Bring your well-loved stuff to share! Shoes especially invited–any extra will go to Rwanda for genocide orphans.
Now, what are you doing still reading this? Go outside!
blessings,
Molly
Beloved,
Most of you know by now, but in case you didn’t, I’m going on sabbatical June 8! While I will miss you inordinately, I can hardly contain my joy at so much unstructured time with the kids, and a chance to do several things (learn ukelele, get voice lessons, nap in the sun, exercise, read scripture daily, pray without ceasing) that I keep promising myself I will. Oh, and yes, there’s a project involved, that I hope will help us live into our vision to become a more deeply multiracial church.
You’re probably wondering, and perhaps worrying, how things will be while I’m away. Our Sabbatical Team and I have prepared the following to help you understand.
In the meantime, I’m here for 3 more weeks, and would love to spend time with you individually if you so desire, a walk, a talk, a coffee, an ice cream! Just let me know.
Christlove,
Molly
What is a sabbatical? How is it different from a vacation?
The root word of “sabbatical” is Sabbath, as in, the seventh day that God the Creator ordained for rest from work. It is a commandment, one of the Ten. In Jewish agrarian theology, when most people farmed the land, sabbath developed into a rhythmic cycle of rest not just for people, but for animals, and for the land itself: every seven years, fields were to lie fallow, every seven-times-seven years, slaves were granted their freedom.
Sabbatical for professors and others is often understood as a time to do research, travel, and publish, lest they perish. But ministers preserve and recuperate this ancient, holy sense of sabbatical: not as vacation, but as a time of holy rest, attention to God, and dedicated spiritual renewal. The UCC recommends that ministers take a sabbatical every 5-7 years. I’ve been at First Church for 5 ½ years. This is my first sabbatical in 11 years of ordained ministry.
Normally churches and pastors have to find a way to fund sabbaticals themselves, but First Church and I have been very blessed to receive a substantial grant from the Louisville Institute. While I was at a conference for orientation to the grant, I heard from Sheldon Sorge, the Institute director, that the cornerstone of a minister’s sabbatical is to “discern your vocation apart from the normal input stream.” That is, to hear God’s call apart from the phone calls, the emails, the worship planning and execution, the committee meetings, the affirmation and joy, the frustration and disappointment, that comes of working in the parish. It is also a time to explore other gifts, skills, disciplines and areas of knowledge that I don’t have time to in the midst of the ordinary demands of parish life.
The first thing I will do, though, every morning when I wake up and am liberated from child care, will be to: exercise, read scripture, and pray. One of the people I will be praying for is you.
When are you actually away?
I am away from work at First Church from June 8-September 8. I’ll be in the Parsonage for the rest of June, so you may see me around town. Don’t cross the street and ignore me if you see me coming! Stop and say hi to me! Give me some hugs! For July, I’ll be traveling in California. For August, I’ll largely be in the northwest corner of Connecticut, at the UCC camp and conference center, Silver Lake.
Who will be overseeing things while you are away?
Different folks will cover different responsibilities while I am away. Laura Ruth, our Minister of Outreach, will take on more pastoral care and administration. She will be available for an additional 10 hours/week.
The Deacons are also available to you if you are in crisis, sick, need someone to pray with you, are lonely for a visit. A list of deacons is found at the bottom of this FAQ. And, I remind you, that we are called to minister to one another—to be the priesthood of all believers, as the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, put it. Sabbatical is a good time to practice this art with one another.
Jamie, our administrator, will run the office and the building. If you have a building or scheduling issue, you may contact her. Jamie also has an up-to-date database, as does Laura Ruth, if you need an email or phone number for another person in our community.
Laura Ruth will preach more frequently, and you will also hear preaching from our in-care students and extraparochial ministers: Laura Tuach, Kerrie Harthan, Jeff Von Wald, Jason Donnelly, LaTayna Purnell, Jim Matarazzo. We will also have a couple of handpicked guest preachers known for their excellence in preaching. They’ve heard about you—and they want to come preach for you!
How will you be unavailable?
I will not be available by email or by phone from June 8-September 8. I will be on Facebook periodically, but as much as I love the mind candy, I will probably not post or check it consistently, so that is not a reliable way to reach me.
How will you be available?
I will be praying for my church community, and the people within it whom I love and cherish, daily.
If there is an emergency of which I need to be made aware, Rev. Laura Ruth or Ian Tosh, our moderator, will contact me. They will keep me apprised of critical pastoral care issues: deaths, serious illnesses, and the like. You can let one of them know if there is an urgent message you wish to convey to me.
I will be back before you know it. And I am not going anywhere for a long, long time: I am very happy at First Church Somerville, and expect my time away from you will only further confirm my call to be your Senior Minister. When I return, Peter and I will host a series of dinner parties so that we can reconnect after the summer, so I can hear how it has been with your soul, and share my own journey.
What is the focus for your study and reflection?
My project is called “The Holy Multicultural City.” I will visit six churches in California, one in Chicago, and one or two in Massachusetts, worship with them and interview their worship staff. These are all churches that are urban, have young adults, and have had significant success in building multi-racial, multicultural congregations. I want to learn from them, to get ideas and inspiration, to bring back home to First Church. I believe this is where God is calling us next: to model the Kingdom of Heaven by building a church that tears down the barriers of race and class.
I will also read a number of books on multicultural church growth, evangelism and leadership. I will also read a lot of NOVELS! Tell me if you have novels you love and think I shouldn’t miss. I love anything in the tradition of Jane Austen, Barbara Kingsolver, Alexander McCall Smith, Robertson Davies.
Is your family going with you?
Peter will be with me for only a week in California, and here and there otherwise. Harvard, where he works, requires his presence for the rest of the summer. The children will be with me, although Rafe and I will head out to California alone initially. You may or may not see Peter in worship, depending on his own travel schedule and his workload.
How will all of this be funded?
This is one of the best parts: normally, churches need to fund a pastor’s sabbatical out of their own budget. But, we wrote for and received a Sabbatical Grant from the Louisville Institute at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary in Kentucky! We were one of forty recipients, out of over 400 applicants. The money they have comes from the Lilly (Pharmaceutical) Foundation, which grants huge amounts of money to religious institutions in America, largely for pastoral renewal and excellence in ministry.
They’ve granted us $15,000, which will be used for:
• A tithe given to our mission and justice partners, in gratitude for what God has given us
• Additional hours for Laura Ruth
• Preaching honoraria for guest preachers
• Molly’s travel expenses and books
• Spiritual Renewal and fun for the congregation: a summer camping retreat, and funds for the July Small Groups for All!
How will this benefit the congregation?
Jesus said, “It is to your advantage that I go away.” (John 16:7) Congregations report that when their ministers come back from sabbatical, they are more productive. They bring fresh ideas and winds of the Spirit from their time of renewal.
But the benefit to the parish begins right away. Sometimes, even the healthiest churches fall into codependent patterns between pastor and congregation. Sabbatical is an opportunity for new leadership to arise, for laypeople to have the blessing of knowing they can truly depend upon one another, and for you to exercise new muscles for administration and pastoral care in your church, and find it a joy.
I remind you that First Church has had women ministers for the last twenty years. It has survived maternity leaves for 5 children, and 2 pastoral sabbaticals. Our church functions very well in the absence of its ministers! (maybe too well, hmmm…)
Sabbatical Team
We have put together a sabbatical team while I am away. They are charged with easing the transitions (ritual leave-taking and re-entering the community), educating the church about the benefit to the congregation of sabbatical, and making sure there is as little disruption to the life of the community as possible.
The team is composed of:
Ian Tosh, Moderator
Laura Ruth Jarrett, Minister of Outreach
Sue Donnelly, Deacon
Gary Springston, Deacon
John Olson, Molly’s Ministerial Care Committe
Tim Duhamel, Laura Ruth’s Ministerial Care Committee
Please speak to them if you have any questions or concerns. And God be with you!
Beloved,
It’s been a quiet week at First Church Somerville. So much of what we hoped for, worked for, prayed for, has come to pass. Easter season is waning, Sacred Conversations are drawing to a close. Laura Ruth went back to Ontario this week, and her partner Meck’s father Jaap passed. Remember them in prayers today, as they bury him, then eat casseroles and tell stories.
This weekend in church: something else is drawing to a close. While Joe Zarro, our student minister, will be with us for several more weeks, he is preaching his last sermon among us! He’ll be preaching on spiritual gifts, and on perseverance in their use, from the Love chapter from I Corinthians: “If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels…”
Elleard Heffern is our able liturgist. I’ll be assisting in whatever way needed. Laura Ruth will be making her way back yet from north; welcome her when she’s home. Joe T leads the choir as Thom takes some well-deserved vacation.
After worship, those who are interested in supporting our relationship with the Casa San Jose orphanage in Colima, Mexico will gather in the Chapel to discern if God is calling us to our usual biennial mission trip for Winter 2010. Tickets are cheap right now, people… If you are interested in going on the trip and can’t make it to the meeting, or are concerned that a mission trip right now would draw off too much energy and resources in a time of recession, please let me know ahead of time.
People, the light has never been more beautiful than it is at this moment. Go outside, wherever you are, close your eyes, feel the sun on your face, and breathe deeply. TGIF!
blessings
Molly
Beloved,
During Lent 2009, small groups of First Churchers met each week to talk about the relevancy of scripture and Christian tradition to our modern lives. We focused on four aspects of post-modern urban life where we felt like the dialogue between The Church and Culture had broken down: Isolation and Community, Poverty and Justice, Sexuality, and Death. Here is an edited version of the “We Believe” statements we came up with. They don’t represent all of us. We didn’t wordsmith or vote on these. They are just a Spirit-led response to our discussions, affirmed by all of us:
We believe that God calls us to live in community with space for positive aloneness.
We believe that in isolation we can hear God’s voice clearly, and in community we can see God’s love in action.
We believe that one cannot be a Christian alone in one’s room; that to love one’s neighbor one must first have a neighbor.
We believe a more just world is possible.
We believe that by doing justice, we are taking steps toward making God manifest on Earth.
We believe that the doing of justice is yoked to our spiritual well-being, and our salvation.
We believe our love of the poor glorifies God.
We believe that to acknowledge our own poverty is to be in communion with all, and with Christ.
We believe in the goodness of the body that God gave us.
We believe that sexuality is an important spiritual practice—along with many other important spiritual practices.
We believe that adults have the responsibility to nurture the young people around them into a healthy understanding of sexuality, and to protect the vulnerable.
We believe that healthy sexual expression is an opportunity to practice generosity, and to feel the full range of feelings that God has given us as a gift.
We believe that these senses and bodies are finite, and that we will surely die.
We believe that we have nothing to fear from death.
We believe that death is not an end to life, but a threshold into a deeper reality.
We believe that if there’s life after death, life is in God’s love.
We believe that the only measure of our words and our deeds will be the love we leave behind when we’re done.
Beloved,
Do you believe, like Huey Lewis, in Love? Do you believe in God? Do you believe that God is Love?
Do you believe that music is the food of Love? Do you believe that we know Love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay our lives down for one another? Do you believe that faith is Love in action?
If you believe, or want to deepen your believing, you are invited this weekend. You are invited to music, to Love in action, to laying down our lives for one another:
Saturday night: Pete Shungu’s benefit concert on behalf of his father Daniel’s work against riverblindness in subsaharan Africa
Sunday morning: Worship–singing, praying, breaking open the word. Toni Snow is our liturgist (her first time! be loving!) I’ll be preaching from a letter, I John, on loving, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Communion!
Sunday morning, continued: Dr. Daniel Shungu teaches us about his lifesaving work in Africa
Sunday noonish: Biannual All-Church Work Day! Pizza, ABBA, putting things together, moving things around, getting the sludge out, deep conversations while scrubbing windows
Sunday evening: reward yourself with a long day’s worship and word at the Michael Gulezian concert, 7p in the sanctuary. Drink it in!
blessings this coolly beautiful day~
Molly
